The Flu: a Historical Killer （ 1 ）
Influenza killed up to 100 million people in 1918, and it's still a threat today
He most virulent pandemic in world history probably slipped into Washington state on September 17, 1918, when feverish naval recruits from Philadelphia docked at Bremerton's Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
Two days later, the disease appeared in Seattle, and by September 28, two hundred recruits at the University of Washington's NavalTrainingCenter reported sick. It began spreading through the city's civilian population like wildfire , and on October 5, Seattle's schools, theaters, gyms and churches were shut.
What followed was the greatest health disaster in modern history.
Three arresting facts emerge
First, a pandemic that would cause media hysteria today received surprisingly subdued press attention in 1918-1919. It has since been largely forgotten.
Second, this pandemic was not something unusual, such as bubonic plague or cholera . It was influenza: plain-old , every-year flu. Yet this strain of flu killed more people in a shorter time than any disease in world history. In 10 months, it snuffed out somewhere between 21-100 million lives and reached into every corner of the globe.
Third, the same pandemic could happen today. Most strains of flu are deadly only to the very young and very old, but in recent years a strain of the type A (H5N1) has emerged from
poultry in Southeast Asia. This strain has killed 80 percent of the few people infected to date. To contain it, authorities have slaughtered hundreds of millions of fowl in Asia, northwest Europe and Western Canada.
Until now?
What has held the A(H5N1) threat in check to date is not so much the killing of farm birds but the fact that this particular virus is not yet easily transmitted from human to human. Should H5N1 ever combine with a human strain to become highly infectious, a pandemic as disastrous as 1918 could happen again.
Why? Just about everybody, sooner or later, gets the flu.
Vocabulary Focus
spread like wildfire (idiom) --- to quickly affect or become known by more and more people
arresting (adj) --- causing people to stop and notice
snuff out (phr v) --- to cause something to end suddenly
slaughter (v) --- to kill an animal, usually for its meat
hold (something ) in check (idiom) --- to keep something under control, usually to stop it from becoming too powerful
Specialized Terms
civilian (n) --- 平民 a person who is not a member of the police or the military
media hysteria (n phr) --- 媒体报道所引发的群众过度恐惧 excessive fear created by mass communication reports of a certain event
bubonic plague (n phr) --- 腺鼠疫 a very infectious disease spread by rats, causing swelling, fever and usually death. In the 14th century it killed half the people living in Europe
cholera (n) --- 霍乱 a serous infection caused by drinking infected water or eating infected food, causing diarrhea, vomiting and often death
strain (n) --- （动植物的）种；类型 an animal or plant from a particular group whose characteristics are different in some way from others of the same group